Coming from the south or from the Santa Monica Freeway:
Take the 405 N, Exit Wilshire East (Bear to the right at the exit)
Turn Right on Wilshire Blvd.
Turn Left on Westwood Ave. (the 3rd traffic light after exiting
the fwy)
Turn Right on Leconte Ave
then turn Left on Hilgard Ave (the second light after turning
into LeConte
Turn Left on Westholme Drive, then turn right immediately in a
driveway to the information booth.
Request parking in Lot #2, parking is $6 per day and mention that
you attending the St Shenouda Coptic Conference at Royce Hall.
The attendant at the booth can direct you to Royce Hall.
Enter in the left-most doors of Royce Hall and take the elevator
up to the third floor (Room #314).

Coming from the north (The San Fernando Valley):
Take the 405 S, Exit Sunset East
Turn Left on Sunset Blvd.
Turn Right on Hilgard Ave.
Turn Right on Westholme Drive, then turn right immediately in a
driveway to the information booth.
Request parking in Lot #2, parking is $6 per day.
The attendant at the booth can direct you to Royce Hall.
Enter in the left-most doors of Royce Hall and take the elevator
up to the third floor (Room #314).

Title:The Importance of the Coptic
Language and Its Relation with Other Classical Middle Eastern
LanguagesPresenter:Prof. Boulos Ayad Ayad, (Boulder,
Colorado)

Abstract:

One can assert that the Coptic Language is the same language
as that of ancient Egypt but in a "more recent" form.
This explains the many similarities found by scholars between
both languages, although Coptic was written in the Greek alphabet
plus seven letters from Demotic. The importance of Coptic
appeared as Champollion attempted to decipher the Rosetta stone.
In preparation, he had studies the Coptic Language as a tool.
Coptic served as one of the languages that assissted scholars in
discovering the correct pronunciation of certain ancient Egyptian
vocabulary. Similarily, a knowledge of Coptic grammar proved
valuable to the early Egyptologists in the study of the ancient
Egyptian language. Moreover, because Coptic was written in the
Greek and Demotic alphabet, it supported the scholars' research
into the Merotic inscriptions and the Nubian Christian languages.
Coptic literature is varied: the saying of the Church Fathers,
theological writings, the monastic rules, biographies of the
saints and martyrs that have been included in the Synaxarium and
other books, stories, contracts, letters, funeral and religious
texts borrowed from the New and Old Testament, grammatical
studies, Gnostic writings, and magical and medical texts. Coptic
writings have close links to both ancient Egyptian and Greek
literature and have been employed by scholars in comparative
studies among the languages. The impact of the Coptic language
and literature expanded with the spread of Christianity
throughout the classical world in the first five centuries A.D.
During that period there was an "International" aspect
to Christian literature, flowering among the Coptic and the
Syrian churches and those in Armenia, Ethiopia, Greece, Russia,
and even the Roman Catholicism. After the movement of Arabs into
much of the Middle East in the seventh century A.D., the Egyptian
Copts and other Christian Arabs began to translate many texts
from their original languages into Arabic as well as now using
Arabic for their contemporaneous writing. This is the reason that
Dr. George Graf believes another Arabic dialect (aside from the
well-known classical, spoken, and modern forms) exists based on
such writings and translation: Arabic Christian literature.

Examples of Coptic art are varied and can be seen in both
secular and religious applications: the style of buildings (from
palaces to villas, modest homes, and granaries); burial
activities (from tombs to coffins, sarcophagi, stellas, masks,
paintings, and geometric designs); the churches (from the roots
to the facades, the two towers, pillars, and columns and the
Interior decorations with the icons and paintings); and a host of
other forms such as amulets, papyri and religious books, crosses,
tools, and garments and textiles. All of such art elements came
from the ancient Egyptian traditions, especially that of the
villages, which was influenced directly by ancestral art. In
larger cities, however, Coptic art was affected by the Greco-Roman
and Byzantine artistic fashions. Nonetheless, the roots of Coptic
art emante from the context of ancient Egyptian art traditions.

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Title:The Use of Psalms in the Coptic
ChurchPresenter:Miss Veronia Hanna (Los
Angeles, CA)

Abstract:

The book of Psalms represented the earliest Christian hymn
book, in the same manner as it served in the times of Jews of the
Old Testament. The Jewish background of the Apostles played a
major role in this of course. In the Coptic Church, manuscriptal
evidence points to early and frequent adoptation of this book in
the Coptic translation of the Old Testament from Greek. This
paper will briefly discuss the Christian origins of its use and
more specifically in the Coptic Church. It will further deal with
the where and the how of its use in the Church. This paper will
also attempt to survey psalms and psalm verses used in the
services to determine pattern of usage if such can be ascertained.
For the purpose of this paper, the survey will be limited to the
Lectionary Readings, the Horologion, and the Psalmodia.

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Title:Pope Timothy II Aeluros, his life
and his importance for development of Christianity in Egypt.Presenter:Prof. David Johnson, S.J. (Washington,
D.C.)

Title:Abba Shenoute and the Melitians:
Polemics and Conflict with Formation, Ideology, and Practice of a
Separatist Monastic CommunityPresenter:Mark Moussa (Washington, D.C.)

Abstract:

Abba Shenoute (d. 465), the famed fifth-century abbot of the
White Monastery near ancient Atripe, Egypt, lead his monastic
community in the midst of a period of active ideological and
practical interchange. The Panopolitan region in particular,
during the late fourth and fifth centuries, provides the
historian with a landscape of ideological diversity among
Christians and non-Christians alike, and an assortment of ascetic
practice among orthodox, Melitian, Manichaean, and other monastic
communities. The writings of Abba Shenoute, the Coptic author par
excellence of Late Antiquity, provides us with a valuable-though
hardly explored-window into the period. In fact, the abbot's
polemical treatises against suspect groups as such tells us much
of their presence and influence on Christian society and culture
in the vicinity of the White Monastery community. This paper will
explore the portrayal of Melitians-a monastic group much
disparaged in Coptic literary sources-as they appear in Abba
Shenoute's writings. We find both observations and criticisms of
their activities, organization, doctrinal ideology, and
liturgical practice in a number of important treatises delivered
several generations after the patriarch Athanasius (d. 373) had
begun his own polemic against his hierarchical foes. Despite Abba
Shenoute's influence and homiletic campaign against Melitians,
their existence in monastic Egypt would continue to thrive at
least until in the patriarchate of Damian in the late sixth
century.

Until very recently the history of ancient Egypt has been
written according to stereotyped ideas by researchers trained in
biblical or classical studies: Greek thought represents
rationalism, Jewish tradition is primarily monotheist, Egypt is
the land of a pragmatic civilization that has been unable to
reach these two perfections of the human mind. Recent studies of
the Corpus Hermeticum and of the Coptic gnostic library
discovered at Nag Hammadi have revealed the importance on the
philosophical thought of ancient Egypt on the shaping of the
religious traditions of the ancient Orient. In the same way that
St. Albert the Great and St. Thomas Aquinus have started in the
13th century a reconciliation between the ancient Greek
philosophy and the principles of the Christian religion, the time
has probably come to achieve a similar reconciliation between the
ancient Egyptian philosophy and the monotheistic religions that
followed it.

Abstract: Throughout their history, the Copts expressed a
lively interest in the lives and teachings of the early church
fathers. Habib Girgis (1876-1951), however, started a theological
movement that intensified this interest and made it a focal point
for generations of Coptic theologians and laymen who followed him.
This paper will trace the movement from its inception to the
present, explain its historical and ecclesiastical contexts, and
attempt to answer these vital questions: If Protestant missionary
activities in Egypt motivated Habib Girgis and his disciples to
appeal to the Fathers for the defense of orthodoxy, what are the
motivations today? Is patristic theology necessary or sufficient
for the establishment of orthodox doctrine? Who are the Coptic
patristic theologians since Habib Girgis? What is the mission of
patristic theology today?

A few manuscript collections, especially in the Middle East,
preserve a lengthy and wide-ranging Arabic-language apology for
the Christian faith sometimes known simply as Kitab Ustath,
"The Book of Eustathius." Very little is known about
this author, and his book has not yet been the object of editing
projects or studies (apart from a few limited-circulation theses).
However, Eustathius and his book were known to important Coptic
Orthodox theologians of the medieval period: Sawirus ibn al-Muqaffa'
in the tenth century A.D., Abu Shakir ibn Butrus al-Rahib in the
thirteenth, and Shams al-Ri'asah Abu l-Barakat Ibn Kabar in the
fourteenth. This paper will briefly introduce "The Book of
Eustathius," summarize what we know about its author, and
demonstrate the extensive use that Sawirus ibn al-Muqaffa' makes
of it. It is suggested that in "The Book of Eustathius"
Sawirus may have found a significant model for the task - new at
that time for the Copts - of writing an apology for the faith of
the Church in the Arabic language.

The current edition of the Bohairic Pascha Book represents a
variety of readings adopted from a previous edition in addition
to new and unique ones found in a particular manuscript. Very
scanty information is found about such manuscripts, however. The
majority of these texts displays some Sahidic features which the
late Coptic Scholar Yassa 'Abd al-Masih transcribed them exactly
as found in the original. Such Sahidic elements are not in pure
grammatical style nor are they mere variant readings of some
words in the text. They seem to be original (or transcription of)
texts translated from Sahidic to Bohairic by one or several that
did not have an excellent command of the classical Bohairic
dialect. Strangely enough most of these texts are extant in pure
Bohairic! This paper will survey some of the interesting
grammatical differences found in these reading as compared by the
classical Bohairic equivalent if found.

Title:A Figure in the Carpet: The
Spirituality of St. Macarius the GreatPresenter:Rev. Dr. Tim Vivian, (Bakersfield,
CA)

Abstract:

Monks have been in the Wadi al-Natrun for almost 1700 years.
Why? Why did the early monks come to live in the forbidding
desert? I hope to answer this question, or make an effort at
answering it, by looking at the spirituality of early monasticism
in the Wadi al-Natrun. Such an effort will, I hope, offer a
history of a different sort, a history of the heart, mind, and
spirit in one particular place and at one particular time. Such a
history, I firmly believe, has relevance for own places and time.
For this paper I will focus on Saint Macarius the Great. My hope
is that by the end of the paper he will have given us a clearer
view of early monasticism and will help us better understand why
the early monks were out in the desert and what they were hoping
to accomplish with their lives.

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Title:The Fifth Ecumenical Council of
the West and the Coptic ChurchPresenter:Mr. Ramses Wassif, (San
Gabriel, CA)

Abstract:

After the fourth council of Chalcedon in 451 AD, the Coptic
Church together with the Syrian Church became independent while
the west looked at them as heretical churches. Together with the
Armenian Church, they are known today as the non-Chalcedonian
Orthodox Churches or the Oriental Churches. In the two centuries
that followed Chalcedon, several attempts for reconciliation were
made. However, for the most part these efforts were unsuccessful
in restoring the unity to the Church. The Churches in the west
continued in their unity until the second schism became official
in 1054 AD. This time, the churches that had agreed with Rome at
Chalcedon, split. These are known today as the Chalcedonian
Orthodox Churches or the Eastern Orthodox Churches. Between the
first and second schisms of 451 and 1054 AD, The church in the
west had three major councils which are recognized by the
Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Churches (Chalcedonian)
as ecumenical. These are the Fifth, Six and Seventh Ecumenical
Councils. The Fifth Council (Constantinople II), which is one of
the attempts at reconciliation, was held in 553 at the request of
Emperor Justinian. It dealt mainly with what is known as the
Three Chapters. This paper will examine the historical background
that led to this council, will define the three chapters, and
their relation to the Coptic Church. It will further demonstrate
that although the council was held as a means to reunite the
Church and its decisions were in line with the theology of the
Coptic Church, the council did not succeed in resolving the
differences that caused the schism in the first place.

The book of Job played a significant role in the liturgical
life of early Coptic Christianity. This paper will discuss the
image of Job in the actual Liturgical books. There they stress
three themes about Job: The Renewing, Temptation and sadness (as
reflection of the Passion of Christ), and the Right Man. These
points will be illustrated by quotations from the various
liturgical books, used currently in the Coptic Church, such as
the Difnar, Psalmodia, Pascha Book, and the Euchologion.